Dr. Tehmina Goskar, Headley Fellow, continues her monthly series on the museum’s history.

There are nearly always a few people, who are interested in collecting old things of various kinds.

Mr. J. Percival Rogers speech, museum opening, 19 September 1949.

The roots of this museum lie absolutely in the communities of Helston and south Kerrier, as well as occasionally further afield. There are few stories of famous and rich people in this museum. The survivals of old, worn and often broken things are actually more miraculous than the survival of gold jewellery or paintings, as these are the kinds of things that people did throw away thinking they were not important, or didn’t have anything to say to future people, or were so worn out little of them remained.

By the time the museum opened in 1949 it had already amassed a small collection, largely through the work of Helston Old Cornwall Society. The very first object in the collection entered in the first Acquisitions Register was the ceremonial silver spade used to cut the first turf of the Helston Railway on 22 March 1882. That was object ‘001’. Object ‘002’ was the less extravagant wooden wheelbarrow used to carry away the first turf cut for the Helston Railway. Both are on display. Today, Helston is cut off from the railway but Helston Railway continues as a heritage railway with ambitions to rejoin the mainline.

Farmers will like it

Joining these ceremonial objects from Helston Railway were a range of agricultural objects such as ox shoes or cues from working oxen at Trewothack, St Anthony-in-Meneage (011) and a particularly tender description of object ‘013’ a moor-stone grain mortar. While many entries are quite business-like, containing the name and address of the donor, the date, and a very simple description, some provide a bit of history and the entry for the moor-stone gives insights into the continued use of Cornish language (Kernewek) words in agriculture as well as the kind of crops that were farmed:

013. Moor-stone grain mortar known in Cornwall as a "pillas traft" in which the extinct grain "pillas" or "naked oats" was pounded with a stone pestle to make "gerty milk." 

Who thought oat milk was a new invention?

I spoke to a farmer friend of mine about this. He said that there is now much more interest in reviving heritage cereal varieties which were believed to have gone extinct, and pillas is one of them. Pillas has a particular association with Cornwall, its botanical name being Avena nuda. Pillas produces fine straw, of the kind plaited to make straw hats. The grain was also used as a wheat substitute. The donation came from the Blue Anchor pub, still at the heart of the Helston community. Apart from its use for straw and flour, pillas was also used for malting extra strong ale. Anyone familiar with Spingo will appreciate its long history.

The Cornishman newspaper reported on the museum’s opening on 19 September 1949 and made specific mention of farmers as an audience for the new museum, “Farmers will like it” said a headline, going on to describe how this museum was going to do things differently to the usually elitist and wealthy origins of many other museums. I was struck by this description of how the museum seemed to the Cornishman reporter:

Undoubtedly the museum owes much of its popular appeal to the informal, unacademic way in which it has grown. Many of the exhibits are of exactly the things that a layman would preserve–the old implement stowed away in the barn, the faded photograph from grandmother’s frontroom–

The Cornishman, 22 Septmeber 1949.

The museum’s catalogues began in November 1937. Other early objects collected for the museum included a caltrop, which is a kind of spiked tetragonal weapon used to trip up soldiers in battle. Helston’s one was found at Zelah and was noted for its use for defending against cavalry attacks. Another early item was a muller, a glass pestle with a broad base still used today for the grinding of pigments for paints. Sadly some of these early objects were either lost prior to the museum formally opening in 1949 (and the hiatus of World War 2) or are misplaced or misidentified. This is why we tirelessly continue to research and identify all of the items in our collections. However, for those items now lost, we still have the memory of them through these important museum registers. Mr. Percival’s opening speech gives us a sense of how fragile starting a new museum was in the late 1930s and 1940s:

we started in a very small and humble way in the Corn Exchange in 1937, when Mr. Dalton very kindly offered to act as honorary curator, and we got together quite a number of exhibits. We were just beginning to get going well, when the wretched war came and perforce everything {of that kind} had to be closed down. The Corn Exchange was in any case not very suitable, and we were despoiled also by hooliganism and thefts. The Museum was broken up and a good many of the exhibits found their way to my office again {for safe keeping}.

Mr. J. Percival Rogers speech, museum opening, 19 September 1949.

We do not want stuffed owls from Siberia, or skulls from New Guinea

The realisation of the new museum at the old Butter Market of Helston, so many years after its inception, was a collaboration between Helston’s Old Cornwall Society and Helston Borough Council. The same newspaper report suggested that the museum was 30 years in the making, meaning that discussions were taking place from the turn of the 20th century. Determination and persistence are essential attributes when starting a new museum. Interestingly, it was only in 1893 that Helston’s previous museum, Penberthy’s Helston Museum, closed.

325 objects in the museum’s collection are recorded in its first register (1937 – 1949), largely compiled by the museum’s first curator, William Dalton, who was also the Landlord of the Beehive pub opposite. Mr. Dalton, as he is still affectionately known, was curator from 1937 to 1970. You can see a tribute to him on the low beam that connects the original Butter Market building and the old Meat Market building that displays many of the agricultural objects in our collections when the museum was extended in the late 1970s. The interplay between local museum and local pub intrigues me and I can imagine that may potential donations came to the museum after a chat at the bar with Mr. Dalton.

What struck me most of all in Mr. Percivall’s opening speech was the statement on what the museum committee wished to collect now. Echoing the newspaper reporter’s comment that this was a museum for the “layman” – in other words the intention for the museum and collection was to reflect the ordinary folk of Helston and south Kerrier with little of the boasting and bluster that often accompany artefacts that reflect the rich and famous, or various colonial exploits.

I should like to say a word or two about the kind of things we want. This is a local museum for Helston and the surrounding district, so, as far as possible, and with some exceptions, we want local things. I mean we do not {specially} want such things as stuffed owls from Siberia, or skulls from New Guinea, or the teeth of sharks from Labrador. We want local things from Helston and (roughly speaking) the Kerrier Rural District. Such things as ancient agricultural implements, old coins, pictures and photographs of old and interesting things.

Mr. J. Percival Rogers speech, museum opening, 19 September 1949.

All museum collections change and evolve. Sometimes those changes are voluntary when items are disposed of because they no longer function as intended, or are so damaged and worn out they cannot be used or displayed, or there is a realisation that it was wrongly added to the collection (called ‘accessioning’). Museums, including this one, also have a history of selling off parts of collections deemed no longer relevant to the purpose of the museum. At Helston there was a a sale of items in the 1990s including some ox horns. There are also instances where museums have disposed of items and then found them offered to the museum again some many years later. Periods of sudden transition and change can also cause losses and misplacements, such as moving buildings, during refurbishments, or sadly when museums close and their collections are dispersed.

Some of these changes, however, are involuntary. The losses from the museum’s collections, such as many of the early objects of this museum described above, remind us that museums are more vulnerable than they may seem. Most museums will have experienced such losses too although we never really talk about it publicly because of a sense of shame that an organisation charged with preserving and caring for collections could be so seemingly careless.

Sometimes, a loss isn’t really a loss, but a misplacement and rediscoveries gladly do happen. Sadly thefts are another way in which collections are changed. Famous museum thefts reach the headlines especially when ancient antiquities, diamonds or an Old Master are involved. But these occur in small museums like ours too. In 1965 a theft was reported of over 100 items including 18th and 19th-century pistols, revolvers, coins and watches. There was a similar theft of guns a couple of years before. Nowadays museums have to comply with firearms laws and all are decommissioned so they cannot be used for violence if they do get into the wrong hands.

Delving into the early registers and archives of the museum continues to teach me things, and prompts me to ask new questions. It’s useful to think of museum collections as evolving and changing, rather than static and immovable. One problem we have now is that as our lives have moved into the digital sphere more and more, and generations have been born into a hybrid world, so just collecting physical artefacts is not going to accurately reflect the ordinary folk of today. If the museum is to stay true to its original purpose, this is something we should consider with more seriousness today.